What Does Canon-Typical Violence Mean?
Content TermA tag meaning the fic contains roughly the same kind and intensity of violence as the source material itself. If you could handle the show, you can handle the fic.
Canon-Typical Violence in Practice
Canon-typical violence is a calibration tag: rather than describing violence in absolute terms, it borrows the source's own baseline as the measuring stick. For a war drama that baseline is high; for a slice-of-life comedy, barely anything. The tag spares authors from over-warning for content indistinguishable from a normal episode while still acknowledging that violence is present, and it signals that the fic does not escalate beyond what canon viewers signed up for. Fandom has affectionately extended the construction to other content — 'canon-typical recklessness,' 'canon-typical bad decisions' — as a joke format that doubles as accurate tagging.
Example usage
"Tagged canon-typical violence, which for this fandom means three sword fights and one tasteful impalement."
Related Terms
Content Warning (CW)
A notice alerting readers to potentially distressing material in a work — violence, abuse, illness, phobias, and similar. Used alongside, and beyond, AO3's mandatory archive warnings.
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Archive Warnings
AO3's mandatory warning system covering four major content categories: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, and Underage. Authors must either apply the relevant warnings, state that none apply, or select 'Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings.'
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Gore
A content tag for graphic depictions of blood, injury, and bodily destruction. It tells readers the violence is rendered in explicit physical detail, not implied.
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Graphic Depictions of Violence
One of AO3's four major archive warnings, required when a work contains detailed, explicit violence. Part of the mandatory disclosure system alongside Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, and Underage.
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